\n<\/p>\n
Stanford, California, USA – March 17, 2019: Aerial view of Stanford University in Stanford California. Stanford is a private university founded in 1885 by Leland and Jane Stanford.<\/span><\/p>\n getty<\/small><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/figure>\n News out of Harvard shows how researchers there are joining forces to zero in on AI that is powerful, safe and equitable.<\/p>\n The Stanford Data Science initiative, a Stanford program focused on data science research and education, and the Stanford Institute for Human-Centered AI, which, as its name implies, focuses on human impact, will now be run under one roof, with the Stanford HAI moniker attached.<\/p>\n HAI brings together researchers from computer science, medicine, law, education, business, and the humanities. They\u2019ll work on technical AI advances alongside ethics, policy, safety, and societal impact. The data science program focuses on collaboration, education, and research involving statistics, computing, and large-scale data analysis in fields ranging from medicine and biology to engineering and social science. Both of these are important. The current roster shake-up is intended to support that reality.<\/p>\n Stanford HAI has some of the best scientists around, and lots of grant money. The Stanford Data Science initiative has the Marlowe computing cluster, an NVIDIA DGX H100 SuperPOD with 248 H100 GPUs and storage measured in petabytes.<\/p>\n In a press statement, Harvard President Jonathan Levin called the new combined office the \u201cfront door for AI at Stanford.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThe merged organization creates a community of scholars whose research touches powerfully on every aspect of AI, its applications, and implications, and the human-centered focus provides a north star for the institute,\u201d Levin said.<\/p>\n In terms of specific leadership, one name that stands out is James Landay, who will head the newly centralized lab. Landay\u2019s decades of work on human-computer interaction is well-regarded. Then there\u2019s Fei-Fei Li, who is known for contributions such as pioneering modern computer vision through the creation of ImageNet, and had a leadership role at Stanford HAI. Li will be a co-chair of the institute\u2019s advisory council, along with John Hennessy, and will also work as Levin\u2019s Special Advisor on AI.<\/p>\n Now, this little tidbit caught my attention, as I concede I\u2019m less familiar with Stanford\u2019s internal community than the one here at MIT. Landay is listed as the \u201cDenning director,\u201d which for a second I thought was some kind of specialized title.<\/p>\n It turns out that Steven A. Denning was a major Stanford donor, venture capitalist, and former chairman of Stanford\u2019s Board of Trustees. That\u2019s where that part comes from.<\/p>\n As for Landay, he had this to say about the consolidation:<\/p>\n \u201cThis technology is changing everything. To have real impact in this moment, we need to adapt. This is about shaping how AI affects people, communities, and society \u2013 with that human-centered perspective at the core of everything we do.\u201d<\/p>\n I\u2019m struggling to tell this part of the story in color.<\/p>\n At the new Stanford HAI, participants will be using Marlowe and other tools to drive progress in many different types of projects: to improve self-driving vehicle technology, for example, or to bring history to life with new curricula, or to find a better way to serve rural populations in different service realms. The list goes on.<\/p>\n Here\u2019s how it\u2019s described in the relevant Stanford Report online:<\/p>\n \u201cNeuroscientists build models that predict brain activity. Historians run natural language processing over archival collections to surface patterns in how societies communicate. And education researchers test tutoring systems that adapt to individual learners and support teachers in classrooms.\u201d<\/p>\n That\u2019s a lot \u2013 all powered by technologies that, as lately as the 2000s, sounded like science fiction. We\u2019re really scrambling to make room for AI at the table, and the Stanford program is just one of many examples, happening, in unison, right now.<\/p>\n<\/div>\nCombined Research Power<\/h2>\n
Big Names<\/h2>\n
A Multi-Disciplinary Hub<\/h2>\n